Genetics

You are the split second of blinding fear that can be felt at the top of a roller coaster, leaving you exposed and wondering if you'll really make it. You are the cigarette stained, leather jacket that I used to call home, long before I learned that contentment could turn to blame and regret in as much time as it takes to open a beer bottle. You are my love for literature and how you taught me that I could always find comfort in the Times New Roman words of a paperback even when I couldn't find it anywhere else. You are the thoughtless, acidic words spewing from the bottom of a heart drowned in liquor that I can still hear resonating off the kitchen walls at 3:47am. You are the words placed haphazardly on this page, almost as hard to decipher as why happiness was an impossibility for you, always just out of reach. You are the emptiness of my stomach, my brain, my heart, as it knocks against my ribcage, wondering why I was never good enough for you. You are the seconds before you got home from work, that I spent building up the wall surrounding my mind that you had torn down yesterday and the day before. You are the echoes I hear every time a door slams, transporting me to places and memories I hopelessly try to shut out. You are an oxymoron; a cruel saint, painful joy, dangerous safety. You are all these things built up inside of me, absorbed through my pores, etched into my heart, creaking inside my bones. And I am nothing, nothing, nothing.

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